4.6 The Holocaust(1933-1945)

“Some of the people disapproved, but their disapproval was only silence.”

–Kurt Messerschmidt, Jewish Holocaust Survivor

Aryan RaceNazi belief that those with German blood, blonde hair, and blue eyes were part of the master or superior race.

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”

Joseph Goebbels

Anti-SemitismPrejudice or hatred of Jews

Roles“The world is too dangerous to live in- not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people

who sit and let it happen.”

-Albert Einstein

DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS STATEMEN? WHY OR WHY NOT?

Pyramid of Hate

GenocideUnited Nations definition (1948):

“any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, including

• Killing members of the group

• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”

HolocaustFrom the Greek for “sacrifice by fire”

“…the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.” –U.S.

Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.

“The primary motivation was the Nazis’ anti-Semitic racist ideology.” –VadVashem, Jerusalem, Israel

“Other groups besides the Jews fell victim to Nazi racial policies. Poles, Slavs, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and Sinti (gypsies), were all murdered in vast

numbers. And Hitler’s political opponents, communists and trade unionists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals were also brutally done to death in Nazi

concentration camps.”

–Imperial War Museum, London, UK

Prejudiced Attitudes

•Historical stereotypes (“Christ-killers,” Black Plague, etc.)

•WWI “stab-in-the-back” myth

Stereotypes, Accepting, Scapegoating

Acts of Prejudice

•1933 Nazi boycott of Jewish owned businesses

•Anti-Semitic propaganda

•Book burnings

Name calling, Social avoidance, Social exclusion

Discrimination

• First concentration camp

• Non-Aryans dismissed from jobs

• Jews prohibited from owning land

• Nuremberg Laws: denied citizenship, prohibit marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans

Discrimination based on employment/housing/education, Harassment

Violence

• 1938 Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”): German mobs attack Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues

• Jews placed in ghettoes

Against people (threats, assault, murder), Against property (arson, desecration)

Genocide

• Einsatzgruppen, special S.S. killing unit, executed 1.5 million Jews.

•Chelmo is the first extermination camp that opens.

Deliberate, systematic extermination of a group of people

• 1942: at the Wannsee Conference, discussion on the “Final Solution” begins

• Extermination camps are created and mass deportations begin

Aftermath1944: Nazis begin deconstructing extermination camps in attempt to conceal their

crimes.

1945: WWII ends and liberation of camps begin

1946: Nuremberg TrialsCaptured Nazi criminals are put on trial for crimes against humanity.

Others are hunted down by Israeli secret agents.

At what level is it easiest to intervene?

At what point or level, does something harmless progress into violence? Why do we allow this to happen?